


Tim Stoker is (Not) Okay

by cc tinslebee (Doitlikeagreaser)



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Agnes Montague Lives (The Magnus Archives), Angry Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives), Burns, Desolation Avatar Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives), End Avatar Sasha James, F/F, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Hard of Hearing Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives), Hurt Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives), Minor Agnes Montague/Gertrude Robinson, Minor Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Sasha James Lives, Tim Stoker Lives (The Magnus Archives)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:34:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26839048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doitlikeagreaser/pseuds/cc%20tinslebee
Summary: He survived the explosion, but at what cost?In which Timothy Stoker miraculously survives the explosion that should have taken his life and is met by another person who should most definitely be dead.
Relationships: Agnes Montague/Gertrude Robinson (mentioned), Basira Hussain & Tim Stoker, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist & Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood & Tim Stoker, Sasha James/Tim Stoker, Tim Stoker & Agnes Montague
Comments: 7
Kudos: 27





	Tim Stoker is (Not) Okay

When he comes to, his head feels like a flaming brick crashed into his skull. Through the pain, little black spots congregate to the center of his vision before promptly vanishing like they were never there to begin with, before another wave laps in. An incessant ringing noise with seemingly no origin manifests in one ear. The right side of his face feels numb and searing at the same time, and he can't help but notice the slight hint of burning flesh. 

He continues to lay there, staring at the melted wax and rubble ahead of him before he gets bored and decides he needs to get up, almost as if he were merely hesitant to get out of bed in the morning. His legs shake underneath him and so do his arms, but he lifts himself up and stumbles home.

Where else can he go? What else is there to do?

The walk home is a blur, but somehow he makes it. With shaky hands and weaker legs, he unlocks the door to his apartment and stumbles in. He can almost forget the events that had just transpired. Almost.

The ruins of wax wasn't enough to do him in, but the sight of his big armchair was. He hadn't sat in it since... well, since Danny, but he could never bring himself to get rid of it. Tonight, the sight alone was enough to invoke the familiar bitterness of bile in his throat, and he nearly trips over himself to flee to the bathroom.

He throws his head into the sink, but nothing comes of his precaution. Slowly, he lifts his head and that's when he sees the state he is in.

He goes to touch the skin of his collarbone with trembling hands, whimpering as soon as the tips of his fingers meet the skin. The skin there used to be smooth, before the worms, before the explosion. Now, it was just matted and slightly red, though not from blood. In fact, there was surprisingly very little blood and not nearly as severe damage as he should have gotten from... what had happened.

His eyes travel upward, and he winces at the sight. Burns above his right eyebrow had disfigured the flesh and seared the hairs closet to the burn. The side of his cheek was badly burnt as well, practically fused with his earlobe. 

But just under the right eye... that's what caught his attention. The way it looked more grotesque than the rest of his burned face, red lined eyebags on the blackened skin. He hates the sight of it. 

The tremours in his hand grow worse the more he stares, so he tears his attention away from his face in attempt to not neglect what had become of his hand. As expected, the flesh was more mangled; it was almost orange in the places that would have been the lines of his hand if it weren't for the burns. For a second, he fears that spots in his vision are back when he sees a glowing orange light just above his open palm. 

He abruptly storms out of the bathroom and into his bedroom, searching for the aviator sunglasses on his bedside table that are just large enough to at least hide the atrocious burn under his right eye. He quickly glances at his bed and thinks of someone long gone, when he slips the glasses on and storms out of his bedroom, out of his apartment. He decides he does not want to be there any longer. It's all too much.

He goes to a nearby park and sits down on a bench to mope in relative peace. There are a few small trees around the space. Not nearly as much as there used to be, though.

Time passes differently when you're alone with your thoughts. He does not know whether minutes, hours, or even seconds passed before the woman is standing right in front of him.

She has the reddest hair he has ever seen on another human being. She seems old, but she does not reflect it. She looks very much like a young woman, albeit older than him. But there's a maturity to her that lets on that she is older than she lets on. He decides that it's her eyes that lead him to that conclusion.

"Timothy Stoker?" She asks it like it's a question, but her face says that she knows beyond a shadow of a doubt who she's looking at.

His ear is still ringing, but he can hear her as clear as day. He compulsively stands up, though he is not sure why. "Who are you?" he whispers, his voice so hoarse it's all he can manage.

"I think you already know the answer to that."

He does, but he can't explain how.

"Agnes Montague," he says, with a little more certainty. Then he falters, "But you're... you're dead."

"I was. But then I decided it wasn't for me."

It was a joke, but her tone was so dry, he almost misses it.

"Seems like you've done the same," she remarks, eying his burns. "I think you and I need to have a chat."

* * *

"When are we going after Elias?"

Agnes sighs and drops her defensive stance. "In due time. You still have no concept of the powers you've been granted."

"But--"

"You're being impatient. Remember what happened the last time you acted impulsively."

Oh, he remembers. This wasn't supposed to happen. He was supposed to be dead. The Desolation saw him in that wax museum; all the pain and loss from the past couple of years weighing down on that one little button. He yearned for destruction and he willed it to happen. He destroyed the Stranger's ritual, and he was saved from the explosion by the Torturing Flame. Or a cruel imitation of sparing him.

He refuses to let it go. "But Elias is a notoriously hated man. If we wait for too long--"

_"Exactly,"_ Agnes snaps, equally as determined as he. "You're not not the only person who wants Elias Bouchard dead, and you're _certainly_ not the most powerful." Her features soften and she sighs again, "Look, I know you have your whole personal blacklist going on of the people who destroyed your life--"

Jane Prentiss, the reason Sasha wound up dead in the first place: dead. The thing that was _not her_ , who paraded around _as_ her and poisoned her memory: missing. Michael, who twisted the knife when he thought that thing was _her_ _:_ the closest thing to dead that he could ever be. Nikola Orsinov and her circus, the reason his brother was missing and/or dead; blown to smithereens by yours truly.

And Elias Bouchard, the man who knew everything and did _nothing:_ alive, but not for long.

"--but I am _not_ going to stand by and watch you get yourself killed for revenge."

"Why not?" Tim bites back, a little harsher than he means to. "I did it before, didn't I? And I'm _fine._ Now I don't have to rely on this being a suicide mission to _get_ somewhere."

"You're not immortal, Tim!" Agnes snaps again. "The Circus wasn't invulnerable; Mike Crew was murdered by a _Hunt_ avatar. _Gertrude_ wasn't immortal, Tim, and neither are _you."_

"Why do you even care?" Tim retaliates. "Does the Desolation need me for something? I'm not willing to be some _pawn_ again, Agnes, I--"

The defeated look on her face makes him shut up almost instinctively. 

"I just... don't want to see you get hurt," she says, just barely above a whisper, but he hears it. His hearing hasn't been the same since that day, but he always manages to hear Agnes loud and clear.

Suddenly he feels a pit in his chest for arguing with her when she's been nothing but helpful to him this entire time. He' been angry _a lot;_ since his brother, since Sasha, since Jon's ridiculous accusations. He's still that angry, bitter man, and Agnes has been patient. When he got angry, she would sit there quietly, let him rave on and on, and silently hand him a cup of tea when he was done. She would talk him down -- like she had today -- whenever she might have thought he was a danger to himself.

She never made him feel less than himself for it, and he still felt awful for making her go through that.

He never knows how to tell her he's sorry. Avoidance has always been one of his best utilities, though.

He grins in that smart-ass way of his, and says, "You're _worried_ about me."

"Oh, piss off."

He knows that _she_ knows this is how he apologises. He can tell by the little smile that pulls at the corners of her lips as she says it.

"You _looove_ me," he muses, platonically.

"And _you're_ hard of hearing," she quips.

"You wound me," he jests, placing a dramatic hand on his chest in faux-offense. "You know well that I can hear you as clear as day."

"Tragic, really," Agnes jokes, "there's no privacy with you and your 'super hearing' around."

He chuckles, feeling much lighter than before. "Shall we continue training?"

"Only if you keep the arguing down to a minimum," she muses, light-heartedly and returning to her defensive stance.

"Of course, your highness."

* * *

They were standing in the same park they met when it happened. Something had felt... off. Agnes thought it might be the weather -- she never really appreciated the rain the way that Sasha had -- so she halts her walking and looks up at the sky. Her eyes grow large and when Tim goes to look at the sky, he sees it too.

The sky was looking back.

There is a moment when those around them look, too, in confusion, before all the witnesses around them become so overwhelmed with fear. The civilians scatter like flies in a panic none of them could quite describe, but it is ingrained in their very bones. He knows they are screaming, but Tim finds himself ever so grateful that the noise is muffled, at best, to him.

He looks back to Agnes, who seems... oddly calm, if not for the inherent frustration that came with the way her lips purse like that.

She answers his question before he even has the chance to ask. "Gertrude would have hated this."

"I thought you two weren't close," Tim off-handedly remarks.

Agnes's head snaps in his direction, "Gertrude was a liar. First she says we never met, and then conveniently she claims that the _only_ time we met was when I helped her murder one of her assistants."

"My god," Tim whispers, just quietly enough for her to not catch it. If she does, she doesn't say anything. "Well... I suppose that explains why the dates don't match up for Emma Harvey's death and yours..."

Agnes seems to calm herself down considerably and returns her attention back up to the sky, "It's like I said, she was a liar. But a determined one at that. She spent her entire career trying to _stop_ these things, even stifling her own powers to do sp, only for her own successor to undo her entire legacy."

"I think her legacy is plenty secure with all the turning-her-assistants-into-books-and-distortions-with-identity-crisises-and-ash," Tim mumbles.

To his surprise, Agnes chuckles. "Yeah, you're right." She smiles quietly to herself, "Were you ever told why Gertrude started stopping rituals?"

"I... don't recall."

"She claimed the Desolation killed her cat."

"Is that a... innuendo?"

Agnes shakes her head with a melancholic smile on her face. "No, I actually accidentally killed her cat. She never let me live it down."

Tim lets out an odd sort of laugh. "Makes sense."

They're both quiet for what seems like a long time, but Tim isn't sure. He isn't sure of anything anymore.

"So... what now?" he asks. Agnes will know. Agnes always knows.

"The Fears are finding their territories now," she answers confidently. "Don't you feel it? The _pull_ _;_ the need to go somewhere, but you don't quite know where?"

He does. 

"Yeah," he whispers, distractedly. "Yeah, I feel it, Agnes. So are we going there?"

"Heavens no," she shakes her head. "Jude can't know I'm here. We're just going to have to find... our own place."

Tim nods, trusting. "And what about the... the not _her?_ _"_ he questions, carefully. "Will it... is it going to it's own... domain?"

"I think so," Agnes says, thoughtfully, before looking back to Tim. "But we're not going to go find it. Your friends will be looking for Elias; they'll most likely find it on the way. Leave it to them."

Tim nods in compliance.

* * *

"Tim?"

He wills himself to look up at the long forgotten, yet familiar voice that is mousy and so distinctively Martin Blackwood.

He wants to greet him. He wants to tell Martin that he's happy to see him alive. He wants to stand up, but he continues to sit on the fallen log. 

"What are you doing here?" he says instead.

"Jon-- Jon thought I'd gone looney when I said I thought I saw you, but -- here you are."

"Here I am."

He notices Basira next. Her eyes look the same as they always did, except they look tired; hollow.

"Hey, Tim," she nods her head in recognistion.

"Hi, Basira. They driving you up the walls yet?"

"You don't even know the half of it."

There's an unspoken solidarity between them. They're both tired, missing someone, and have no real roots to this place. Not anymore. What had once been London, their home, was now plains upon plains of meaningless space. They had no domain that tied them down; no home.

The next thing he sees is the way Jon's eyes flicker from the burnt tree stump by Tim's side to _him._

"Tim... what _are_ you?" he asks, carefully, almost as if he doesn't want to know the answer. But he _does_ want to know; it's in his very nature.

"Jon!" Martin scolds.

"It's okay, Martin," Tim assures him, eyes locked with Jon's. "Oh, I'm bisexual." 

He says it like it's a classic Tim joke, but everything about him says that it is most certainly _not._

"I see."

Tim tilts his head, "If you want to know so badly, Jon, why don't you pull it out of me yourself?"

He shouldn't be pushing it; not now. But he knows no other way.

"I don't want to have to do that, Tim."

"That's _enough,_ you two," Martin injects, and Jon backs down.

Tim doesn't.

"So, what are you doing here? Off to see the wizard, are we?"

"That would mean there should be four of us," Martin replies. An invitation.

He looks back at Jon, "So what would that make me, Jon? Are you planning on having Elias set me on fire? Or maybe I'll just do that all by myself. Or, perhaps, I'm the hollow, heartless Tin Man. Seems fitting." He shakes his head, and gives Martin a more sincere response, "Sorry, Martin, but I'm good right where I am. You have your pack, and I have mine."

Martin's eyebrows knit together at the statement, but he simply nods in acceptance.

Jon mutters that they should go, and Martin nods again, a little dejected. He's ready to follow him when he turns around again.

"Tim?" he says, meekly. "It's dead. The thing that... wasn't Sasha. Jon killed it."

Tim nods in recognition. "Thanks for telling me, Martin."

"Of course. Take care, Tim."

Basira nods her head to him again, and they leave behind Jon without another word.

Agnes comes back after what's simultaneously a short while and forever after they leave.

He finally stands up. "Thank goodness you're here. Jon and Martin just found me."

Agnes looks the most alarmed he's ever seen her. "They were here?"

Tim nods. "They're going the other way, so we shouldn't run into them again." He pauses. "Where _are_ we going anyway?"

He's never asked before because he trusts her. But at the end of the day, he's still aligned with the Eye, and curiosity will forever try to kill this cat.

She's quiet for a moment. "The End."

"The End...?" he repeats, tensely. "You don't mean..."

"Don't be ridiculous, we're not going to mess with Oliver Banks," she assures him, though he still feels uneasy. "There's an End aligned domain coming up. We'll never even have to come across Banks, Jude, _or_ the Stranger."

He nods again. He wants to ask what business they have there, but he doesn't question her.

Agnes knows best.

* * *

Agnes brings them to a pond, the area in and around it seemingly grey in nature. The presumably once bright colours of the surrounding area are largely distilled and an ever present mist looms over the domain.

_"This_ is the End domain we've been looking for? Seems like it belongs more to the Lonely."

"It's an End _aligned_ domain, my dear," Agnes reminds him, "but the avatar who resides here is most certainly very lonely."

"Why are we here?"

"I need to speak with the avatar here." She sends a knowing smile Tim's way. "Would you be a dear and bring her out for me?"

Tim questioningly furrows his eyebrows at her, but walks ahead to look for the avatar she spoke of without question.

He walks along the edge of the pond, wondering who this avatar is and where she could possibly be. Then, just behind a large tree that curves just over the water, he sees movement and moves to walk around the tree.

"Hello? I'm sorry to bother you, but my friend would like to speak to yo--"

A woman around his age quickly stands up from the tree root she was sitting on and whips around at almost a frightening speed. It's like she's heard the voice of an old friend. Her eyes widen in what appears to be surprise and she just... stares at him, unsure of what to say.

She looks at him like she knows him from somewhere, but he doesn't recognise her at first. She's beautiful, that's for sure, with dark brown hair and glasses that frame her face very well. She's dressed like she was an academic back when the world had _some_ order to it, and her beauty is natural, Tim notices. He didn't really believe people could wake up looking as gorgeous as the folks who spend hours on their looks -- besides himself, of course -- but she makes him believe that maybe that's not so far from the truth. He sees her like she's in high definition compared to the scenery around her, but he still can't quite place how she knows him.

"Tim?"

She says it timidly, more careful than he'd ever heard anyone speak before. Her voice is the smoothest and most comforting he's heard in a long time. Even Agnes's now familiar and almost motherly voice has it's edge at times.

He's about to say _"I'm sorry, do I know you?"_ when he realises just how scared she sounded when she said his name. A thought in the back of his mind tells him that he _knows_ who is right in front of him and he hates himself for even considering saying that. Or perhaps he just hates that his head has given him a hope that will absolutely crush him if he's mistaken. He takes the chance anyway.

"Sasha...?"

He watches how her eyes widen even more and the tiny twitch at the corner of her mouth as she finally releases her breath. She nods vigorously and that's when she starts to get blurry.

Choking out a sob, Tim's eyes well with tears and he collapses onto his knees right then and there. He swears, a lot louder and harsher than intended; the first time he gets to see her -- really _her_ \-- in _years_ and his vision fails him. He wants the tears _gone;_ he wants to _see_ her, to look at her and memorise her face until he remembers and will never forget again. He wants to, but his body shakes and he can't bring himself to stop sobbing uncontrollably. He doesn't want her to be gone again, he doesn't want to forget her, he wants to stop forgetting--

In only a second, she's right by his side, holding his head in her hands, smoothing the hair out of his face, and mumbling calming words to him. His eyes are still blurry with tears, but Sasha's right in front of him. 

"Shh, shh, it's okay, it's okay," she whispers, her voice soothing. She pets his hair and holds him patiently as his sobs gradually quiet down and he is left shaking in her arms.

"How--" he hiccups a smaller cry, "how are you here...?"

She rubs tranquil circles into his back, "I... you know about the Fears, right?"

"Yeah, I do."

"One of them rescued me. The End. I... don't know if it spared my life or brought me back, but I'm... not entirely dead."

Tim felt a shock of panic when he felt her shift away from him, but she put his unease to rest when her hands turned to his face.

"I wanted to go back to the Institute, to see you," she insisted, her eyes full of regret and worry. "I would have if it weren't for Oliver."

Tim's eyebrows knit. "Oliver Banks?"

Sasha nods. "I was stuck inside of the archives, dazed and confused, for what seemed like an eternity. He just... showed up and ushered me out of there. When I had come to my senses, I insisted that I needed to go back, to make sure that you and Martin and Jon were safe but--" she sighs, defeatedly. "He wouldn't let me. I honestly only saw him a few times, but I knew I wouldn't be able to go back to the Institute.

"One of the only times I saw him was when Jon was in the hospital... he said that no one except for Jon and a cop had survived what happened at the wax museum…" Her thumb traces the burn on his right cheek in wonder and concern, and in that moment that Tim wishes he still had feeling in that spot. "Tim... what happened to you?"

"The Desolation happened," he shrugs. After a moment of hesitation, he removes his sunglasses for the first time in a while, avoiding Sasha's gaze once the burn under his eye is revealed. "I blew the Circus that took Danny to kingdom come and got this for my troubles. It could've been a lot worse, but the Desolation spared me like the End spared you."

He can't bear to see her reaction to the scar that he so despised, but he wants to hide it from Sasha even less.

"Is it okay if I..."

He's so surprised that he can't stop himself from looking at her. Sasha isn't disgusted or horrified like he thought she would be; she's worried about him, sure, but there's something that looks like enamourment in her eyes. 

"Yes. I mean -- it doesn't hurt there that much anymore, so you can--"

He cuts himself off. Cautiously, her hand slowly makes its way back to his face and she touches the spot with heed. The focused expression on her face leads him to the conclusion that she's observing it with care. He doesn't mind; her fingers graze the spots on his face that haven't lost feeling and it occurs to him how much he's missed her touch.

"Jon and Martin took care of the thing that attacked you," Tim adds, off-handedly as she continues to inspect him. "It's dead."

Sasha hums distractedly in response. "Glad to hear that they're finally getting along. I do sort of feel bad for it, though."

"I don't."

"You would," she laughs, and it's like music to his ears. _God,_ he missed her laugh. Her hand slowly falls from his face and before he can truly miss her touch, she gently presses her lips against his forehead. "I want you to stay."

"I _want_ to stay," he breathes sharply.

"So stay with me."

He admires her eyes for a moment; a deep, beautiful brown that he thinks would look even more beautiful in the light, but are breathtaking just the same. Eyes aren't something you think you'd miss about a person, but they contain all sorts of different colours, shades, and meaning that means the world to the broken man who had forgotten just what they looked like.

He's never going to forget any part of her ever again, that he's sure of.

Then he remembers that he's not the only one he has to think of right now.

He briefly looks back to the direction he came from before his attention is back to Sasha. "Can my friend stay here too? We've been through so much together and I don't want to just _leave_ her--"

"Of course," she nods, reassuringly.

She helps him stand up, keeping him balanced on the roots of the tree despite the pain in his legs from the fall, and he retraces his steps to take her back to his companion.

When he finds Agnes, she still has that knowing smile on her face.

Hand in hand with Sasha, Tim gestures with his empty hand towards his mentor. "Sasha, this is Agnes. Agnes, Sasha."

Tim finds himself grinning when he sees the shock on Sasha's beautiful face.

"Agnes -- your travelling partner is _Agnes Montague?"_ Sasha gapes in surprise, sort of star-struck in a strange way.

Agnes nods her head, her pursed lips curled into a prideful, but kind smile. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Sasha James. Tim's told me a lot about you."

Tim would normally make an undignified noise at being exposed like that, but he was just so _happy_ to have Sasha again that he really didn't mind.

"I'd recognise that look in your eyes anywhere," Agnes continues, and Tim just knows she sees Gertrude's fire in them. "I'm guessing you're still touched by the Eye; you must have a lot of questions."

Sasha nods vigorously, and though Tim still grapples with his memories, he falls just a little more in love with her at her eagerness for knowledge.

Agnes smiles, assuring, "I'll explain everything soon. But you two should catch up first. Do you mind if I have a look around?"

"Not at all! Please, be my guest."

Agnes nods in thanks. She begins to walk off, but not before she playfully elbows Tim.

Once Agnes is out of earshot, Sasha turns to Tim, a wide, awestruck expression on her face. "Your travelling partner is Agnes Montague?" she repeats.

Tim chuckles, "Sure is. I think you'd like her a lot." He smiles, the softest he has in a long time. "Want to show me around?"

Sasha nods again and takes his hand in hers, guiding him around the pond she calls home. He watches her, enamoured, as she shows off her favourite places; all small, mostly hidden, and all perfectly splendid to her. 

Home hasn't been a place for Tim for a long time now. It hasn't been his flat, with his big armchair that Danny once sat in. It's been Agnes and her maternal warmth, wandering who knows where and trusting the messiah to guide him. Seeing Sasha again, her face lighting up as she traces her hand on the bark of her favourite tree in her domain, Tim allows himself to see himself living here with her and Agnes. Maybe he found a permanent home after all this time.

Perhaps Timothy Stoker can be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! If you liked this fic, leaving a kudos would be much appreciated! Comments are appreciated as well, as long as things are kept positive/constructive! Have a nice day!


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